CODE SWITCHING.

As a meta-observation, one of the reasons I enjoy writing to you so much is that I can use my inner language — which is a mixture of Russian and English. There is something very interesting (to me) in my code switching practice: when the switch occurs in the middle of the sentence, the resulting output has to be valid in both grammars. How my brain does that is the real question — do you know any book that deals with it?

I do not, and it’s an interesting question, so I pass it along to my readership. If you know of any good articles accessible via JSTOR, they’re welcome too.

Comments

I don’t know references offhand but I think there has been a fair amount of scholarly study about code-switching, especially Epanish-English in the US and French-English in Canada, among others. Look up “Google Scholar code-switching”.
About JSTOR: I recently discovered that they are no longer limiting moneyless access to academics who can avail themselves of university libraries but that ordinary people can apply to subscribe too without spending huge amounts of money. However, their conditions seem to be insanely complicated. Any advice or opinions?

I don’t understand what your friend means by “valid in both grammars”. Obviously the English part of the sentence will conform to English grammar and the Russian part will conform to Russian grammar, but what would it mean for the Russian part to be valid in English grammar or vice versa?

what would it mean for the Russian part to be valid in English grammar or vice versa?
Maybe that a “to” construction in English would have to be followed by a dative construction in Russian, that sort of thing? The details of my friend’s particular situation aren’t really important; the question is whether researchers have investigated what goes on in the brain of code-switchers, or more generally how the psychology works. I recently discovered that they are no longer limiting moneyless access to academics who can avail themselves of university libraries but that ordinary people can apply to subscribe too without spending huge amounts of money. However, their conditions seem to be insanely complicated.Here‘s their page about it; it doesn’t seem that complicated to me. Register an account and you get free access to a certain number of articles; apparently they “expect to adjust aspects of the program as needed.”

Maybe that a “to” construction in English would have to be followed by a dative construction in Russian, that sort of thing?
That would sound really weird. I think to appear grammatically palatable, one would need to keep whole clauses of sentences in one language? Sort of like avoiding situations where cases and genders jump into the middle of an English sentence, потому что на слух это покажется корявым, kind of like that. My possible explanation is that we keep the pitch / tone of separate clauses separate, and then it sounds OK.

Not a book, but I recently ran across this, which says, “El orden de palabras inmediatamente anterior y posterior al cambio debe ser gramaticalmente posible en ambas lenguas,” and gives an example sentence that I’m not going to try and format in the comments section, then some Spanglish examples that, fascinatingly, feel ungrammatical though I wouldn’t have been able to tell you why.

TR: what would it mean for the Russian part to be valid in English grammar or vice versa?
LH: Maybe that a “to” construction in English would have to be followed by a dative construction in Russian, that sort of thing?

Yes!

And Lameen got the formal apparatus:

Carol Myers-Scotton’s The Uniform Structure Principle (USP)

“Here is the USP: A given constituent type in any language has a uniform structure and requirements of well-formedness for this constituent type must be observed whenever that constituent appears. In bilingual speech, the structures of the Matrix Language (ML) are always preferred; that is, following the ML’s structures satisfies the Uniform Structure Principle.
Embedded Language (EL) islands, phrases from other varieties participating in the clause, are allowed if they meet EL well-formedness conditions, but also ML conditions applying to the clause as a whole (e.g. phrase placement).”
http://www.myers-scotton.com/short_summaries.htm),

From self-observations, the Matrix Language for me is mostly Russian (native), and Embedded Language mostly English, but they can be switched.

And you can support my book habit without even spending money on me by following my Amazon links to do your shopping (if, of course, you like shopping on Amazon); I get a small percentage of every dollar spent while someone is following my referral links, and every month I get a gift certificate that allows me to buy a few books (or, if someone has bought a big-ticket item, even more). You will not only get your purchases, you will get my blessings and a karmic boost!

Favorite rave review, by Teju Cole:
"Evidence that the internet is not as idiotic as it often looks. This site is called Language Hat and it deals with many issues of a linguistic flavor. It's a beacon of attentiveness and crisp thinking, and an excellent substitute for the daily news."

From "commonbeauty"

(Cole's blog circa 2003)

All comments are copyright their original posters. Only messages signed "languagehat" are property of and attributable to languagehat.com. All other messages and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of languagehat.com. Languagehat.com does not endorse any potential defamatory opinions of readers, and readers should post opinions regarding third parties at their own risk. Languagehat.com reserves the right to alter or delete any questionable material posted on this site.